RT-AC87R 5G is disabled

[bigal7400]

I have just started to see an issue with the 5G band as other have commented.

Regardless of the range issues, my main problem with this unit begins and ends with its firmware and GUI. As I write this I have recently upgraded to the most recent firmware with no resolution to a major issue (5ghz band dropping connections) and have begun experiencing more. The router's GUI has now decided to list my 2.4ghz band as a 5ghz band for some reason. In addition, the 5ghz band now has its list of channels as the exact same 1-11 that are usually listed for 2.4ghz. Something is clearly messed up here. Also worth noting, wireless devices such as my Roku and Nest thermostat suffer from speed issues and connectivity loss respectively. Again these were problems that never existed until the day I changed to the AC87U router. I will attempt to condense my feelings into a pros/cons list with a conclusion to follow.

from RMon October 20, 2014 at http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R1T3RV84L1IYKP/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00MPI5N7U

I am unable to show the 2.4 band at all but if I disable the 5G band all the wireless goes down.

I am attaching screen shots

 

[tommyv2]

You're running an alpha version of a firmware and experiencing problems.

Should probably mention that in your post and topic.

 

[bigal7400]

yes, I installed that after the router lost 5G that is the strangest thing. I had 5G all week running merlin 378.51 and then yesterday it just rebooted and I lost 5G. In a last ditch effort I installed the alpha version. Finally, This morning I erased nvram and 5G came back. Once I reset everything. So to be fair alpha version did not cause the issue. I was there as an attempt to fix the router. Not sure why the router went crazy. A nvram erase was the only way I could find to fix it. Now I have both bands again; hopefully, this time they will stay!.

 

[baos]

asus recommends doing a hard reboot between versions of qtn, which alpha is doing a lot of. That said there are some issues with the current alpha firmware, however I have not experienced this 5g issue. Try an older firmware, and consider the possibility your hardware could be defective? try the asus original firmware to figure that out.

 

[Nathan MIller]

The only time I saw this is when I used symbols in my WPA2 password and I saw the same thing for every version I ran...even stock. I then read the docs and while it doesn't state that I cannot, it also doesn't say that I can. The funny thing is I used this same password on my Airport Extreme for years without issue. When I used it on my Asus router my 5G would disappear whenever I added the password that had a ' and a ! in it.

 

[baos]

You can try adding a \' before it. or sometimes even \\\\'. It's known as a buffer overflow. Most things are patched against it. But there are still a large amount of computers that are not.

 

[RMerlin]

You can try adding a \' before it. or sometimes even \\\\'. It's known as a buffer overflow. Most things are patched against it. But there are still a large amount of computers that are not.

A buffer overflow is when you try to store something that's too long for the allocated buffer, and there is no check in place to ensure you don't go past its boundaries. That's something different.

In this case, the issue is more about interpretation. Some characters end up being interpreted by parts of the firmware code rather than directly copied. This is most visible with the RT-AC87U's 5 GHz band, as the firmware has to pass that parameter to the Quantenna firmware through a shell command. As noted, you can sometime work around by escaping those special characters, but it's simpler to just switch to something that does not use special characters.

 

[Nathan MIller]

Thanks @RMerlin! I just saw @baos reply and was about to mention that I think he meant to call the \ an escape which would make perfect sense, especially after reading your reply talking about passing a parameter via a shell command.

If these were vulnerable to some buffer overflow that wouldn't be good